The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

My logic is answered by emotion. With a shout, I bring Whipsnap’s blade down and sever head from body. The two halves, which are nearly the same size, fall next to each other. The head rolls and spins, coming to rest against the base of a stone table. Purple blood pools around the separated parts, but nothing else happens. The creature is dead. And as a Nephilim, whose spirit cannot exist eternally outside of Tartarus, it ceases to exist. Which is for the best, I decide. They might have given it my eyes, but there was nothing else human about it.

With the thing dead at my feet, my interest in this Nephilim laboratory hits an all time low. It’s not a safe or smart place to be, especially now that I’ve wrecked the place and left my scent all over it. It seems unlikely that anyone or anything will be returning to the lab, which was unaffected by the flood, but if a hunter comes to this place, they’ll know I’ve been here. That I’m alive. And that I’m free from Tartarus.

And if that happens, I need to be as far away from this horrible place as I can be. I head for the large staircase and glance to the left, looking at one of the largest of the liquid filled tubes. It’s nearly fifteen feet tall, and it’s occupied. The shape inside makes me pause.

It’s not human. For a moment, I mistake it for one of the oversized centipedes, but it’s not even a body.

It’s a body part, the likes of which I have only ever seen once.

In Tartarus.

Cronus’s tail.

The long, scorpion-like tail and stinger are impossible to mistake. For a moment, I’m filled with dread. Did Cronus trick me? Was he captured and experimented on? Both of these concerns are quickly discounted. Cronus couldn’t have been taken here, dismantled and pickled before I got here. The timing is all off and the scent of his blood would still hang in the air. This place hasn’t been used in some time.

The tail belongs to someone else.

Or, like all of my dead duplicates, it was grown here. But for what purpose?

A question for another day, I decide. But I can’t let this appendage be used for anything sinister, so I climb up on top of one of the Nephilim-sized operating tables and whack the glass with Whipsnap’s mace. The cylinder shatters, spilling gouts of purple fluid, and the tail, onto the floor.

As the liquid spreads toward the staircase, I leap from tabletop to tabletop. I beat the purple fluid to the staircase by a few feet, and as I start down the stairs, the trickling sound of flowing liquid follows. I quickly reach the crack through which I entered the smooth tunnel and slip back into the craggy, rough underworld. As I backtrack through the tunnel, I feel calmer, more in control, but the disturbing discoveries I made in the lab haunt me like specters.





14



I head up through the underground as quickly as I can. Not just because I want to reach the surface, but because I know time moves more slowly the deeper you are. If I linger in the depths too long, the conflict on the surface will flash past before my arrival. There is no rhyme or reason to my path; I’m just heading up. But after miles of walking, it happens. I recognize a tunnel. I’m not far from New Jericho. And from there, it’s an easy trek to the surface and then…Clark Station 1? Clark Station 2?

Part of me says this is a very bad idea. My nostalgia has made me predictable before. It’s how Ninnis found me. It’s also what led to Tobias’s death. I might walk into a trap. That said, no one knows I’m here. Ninnis and the Nephilim, if they’re even still on Antarctica, won’t be looking for me. And both Em and Kainda are smart enough to not return to those places. Not for long anyway. But maybe long enough to leave a clue. It’s the only starting place I have that might help me find my friends, and help. As much as I’d like to finish my journey, and fight, without endangering anyone else I care about, it’s just not possible. I need help.

To find the Jericho Shofar, I first need to locate Hades. But I have no idea where to find him. I assume he resides at the Olympus citadel, like the other faux-Olympian-god Nephilim, but I’ve never been there. I need a guide. And without my powers, I’ll need back-up. Significant back-up. I was able to kill Ull using my powers, but I’m fairly certain such a thing won’t be possible without them. Even with Em and Kainda fighting with me, I doubt we could manage to slay even one of the warriors.